Surf's up

You don’t have to wait for the newspaper any more to check the marriage licenses.

The Pulaski circuit/county clerk’s website, pulaskiclerk.com, has been upgraded. In the last month, the page — which had previously featured only voter registration information — has started offering access to court docket entries for criminal and civil cases and marriage licenses, some going back to 1985. The information is searchable by name or case number, and plans are in the works to expand the program to include probate cases, minister credentials and domestic relations cases.

Clerk Pat O’Brien said that by the end of the year, web surfers should have free access to full, digitized court records online, with the archive going back to April 2005.

A nu job

Add Paul Novicky’s name to the list of Little Rock chefs who’ve left the world of fine cuisine to flip burgers. A source tells us Novicky is buying Continental Cuisine, which owns the Purple Cow concept, from Paul Bash and Ed Moore. A press release issued earlier this week said Novicky is indeed leaving Nu Cuisine Lounge as executive chef and co-owner, and said he was looking at pursuing a casual family-oriented business, which would fit the Purple Cow.

Other changes are in store at Nu as well: The restaurant will close on May 4 for renovations to both its decor and menu.

Campaign payroll

Mike Huckabee’s exploratory committee filed its first quarterly report this week and his fund-raising of $540,000 put him well down the list of presidential contenders. But he’s operating cheaply, with only about $170,000 in expenditures.

Some things don’t come cheap, however. The filing indicates that campaign manager Chip Saltsman is being paid $7,500 every two weeks, or $15,000 a month. If that continues for a year, you do the math.

Other notable pay includes $5,000 a month to an Alice Fraker. Is that a name we hadn’t known previously for long-time press aide Alice Stewart? Seems possible, since we couldn't find here name elsewhere, but we hadn’t gotten an e-mail response to the point at press time.

Blue Hog Report has some news on a Republican primary challenge of an incumbent legislator, Rep. Laurie Rushing, by Ernie Hinz of Hot Springs.

Republicans, including at least one from Arkansas, are talking about repealing the Dickey Amendment which prohibits gun research from a public health perspective. But none of them are yet willing to DO anything about it.

A rediscovered violin concerto brings an oft-forgotten composer into the limelight.

My colleagues John Ray and Jesse Bacon and I estimate, in the first analysis of its kind for the 2018 election season, that the president's waning popularity isn't limited to coastal cities and states. The erosion of his electoral coalition has spread to The Natural State, extending far beyond the college towns and urban centers that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. From El Dorado to Sherwood, Fayetteville to Hot Springs, the president's approval rating is waning.

Despite fierce protests from disabled people, the U.S. House voted today, mostly on party lines, to make it harder to sue businesses for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Of course Arkansas congressmen were on the wrong side.

Latest in The Insider

Old habits die hard. We may have a new Republican majority in the legislature, but like the old Democratic majority, it still doesn't hurt to have a lawmaker spouse to land a part-time job during the legislative session.

When we first asked Gov. Mike Beebe about the "circuit breaker" idea out of Arizona (automatically opting out of Medicaid expansion if the feds reduce the matching rates in the future), he said it was fine but noted that states can already opt out at any time, an assurance he got in writing from the feds.

An interesting controversy is brewing in Conway Public Schools, periodically a scene of discord as more liberal constituents object to the heavy dose of religion that powerful local churches have tried to inject into the schools, particularly in sex education short on science and long on abstinence.